Today | News | Books | Recipes Adventure | Science Fiction | Ghost stories | Poetry | Children | History Bookd can most fully understand your feelings at your
loss.
I grieve to think how little I saw of Henslow for many years. With
respect to a biography of Henslow, I cannot help feeling rather
doubtful, on the principle that a biography could not do him justice.
His letters were generally written in a hurry, and I fear he did not
keep any journal or diary. If there were any vivid materials to describe
his life as parish priest, and manner of managing the poor, it would be
very good.
I am never very sanguine on literary projects. I cannot help fearing
his Life might turn out flat. There can hardly be marked incidents to
describe. I sincerely hope that I take a wrong and gloomy view, but
I cannot help fearing--I would rather see no Life than one that would
interest very few. It will be a pleasure and duty in me to consider what
I can recollect; but at present I can think of scarcely anything. The
equability and perfection of Henslow's whole character, I should think,
would make it very difficult for any one to pourtray him. I have been
thinking about Henslow all day a good deal, but the more I think the
less I can think of to write down. It is quite a new style for me to
set about, but I will continue to think what I could say to give any,
however imperfect, notion of him in the old Cambridge days.
Pray give my kindest remembrances to L. Jenyns (128/2. The Rev. Leonard
Jenyns (afterwards Blomefield) undertook the "Life" of Henslow, to which
Darwin contributed a characteristic and delightful sketch. See Letter
17.), who is often associated with my recollection of those old happy
days.
LETTER 129. HENRY FAWCETT TO CHARLES DARWIN.
(129/1. It was in reply to the following letter that Darwin wrote to
Fawcett: "You could not possibly have told me anything which would have
given me more satisfaction than what you say about Mr. Mill's opinion.
Until your review appeared I began to think that perhaps I did not
understand at all how to reason scientifically." ("Life of Henry
Fawcett," by Leslie Stephen, 1885, page 100.)
Bodenham, Salisbury, July 16th [1861].
I feel that I ought not to have so long delayed writing to thank you
for your very kind letter to me about my article on your book in
"Macmillan's Magazine."
I was particularly anxious to point out that the method of investigation
pursued was in every respect philosophically correct. I was spending an
evening last week with my friend Mr. John Stuart Mill, and I am sure you
will be pleased to hear from such an authority that he considers that
your reasoning throughout is in the most exact accordance with the
strict principles of logic. He also says the method of investigation you
have followed is the only one proper to such a subject.
It is easy for an antagonistic reviewer, when he finds it difficult
to answer your arguments, to attempt to dispose of the whole matter by
uttering some such commonplace as "This is not a Baconian induction."
I expect shortly to be spending a few days in your neighbourhood, and if
I should not be intruding upon you, I should esteem it a great favour if
you will allow me to call on you, and have half an hour's conversation
with you.
As far as I am personally concerned, I am sure I ought to be grateful to
you, for since my accident nothing has given me so much pleasure as the
perusal of your book. Such studies are now a great resource to me.
LETTER 130. TO C. LYELL. 2, Hesketh Terrace, Torquay [August 2nd, 1861].
I declare that you read the reviews on the "Origin" more carefully than
I do. I agree with all your remarks. The point of correlation struck me
as well put, and on varieties growing together; but I have already begun
to put things in train for information on this latter head, on which
Bronn also enlarges. With respect to sexuality, I have often speculated
on it, and have always concluded that we are too ignorant to speculate:
no physiologist can conjecture why the two elements go to form a new
being, and, more than that, why nature strives at uniting the two
elements from two individuals. What I am now working at in my orchids is
an admirable illustration of the law. I should certainly conclude that
all sexuality had descended from one prototype. Do you not underrate the
degree of lowness of organisation in which sexuality occurs--viz., in
Hydra, and still lower in some of the one-celled free confervae which
"conjugate," which good judges (Thwaites) believe is the simplest form
of true sexual generation? (130/1. See Letter 97.) But the whole case is
a mystery.
There is another point on which I have occasionally wished to say a few
words. I believe you think with Asa Gray that I have not allowed enough
for the stream of variation having been guided by a higher power. I have
had lately a good deal of correspondence on this head. Herschel, in his
"Physical Geography" (130/2. "Physical Geography of the Globe," by Sir
John F.W. Herschel, Edinburgh, 1861. On page 12 Herschel writes of
the revelations of Geology pointing to successive submersions and
reconstructions of the continents and fresh races of animals and plants.
He refers to a "great law of change" which has not operated either by
a gradually progressing variation of species, nor by a sudden and
total abolition of one race...The following footnote on page 12 of
the "Physical Geography" was added in January, 1861: "This was written
previous to the publication of Mr. Darwin's work on the "Origin of
Species," a work which, whatever its merit or ingenuity, we cannot,
however, consider as having disproved the view taken in the text. We
can no more accept the principle of arbitrary and casual variation
and natural selection as a sufficient account, per se, of the past
and present organic world, than we can receive the Laputan method of
composing books (pushed a outrance) as a sufficient one of Shakespeare
and the "Principia." Equally in either case an intelligence, guided by
a purpose, must be continually in action to bias the directions of the
steps of change--to regulate their amount, to limit their divergence,
and to continue them in a definite course. We do not believe that Mr.
Darwin means to deny the necessity of such intelligent direction. But it
does not, so far as we can see, enter into the formula of this law, and
without it we are unable to conceive how far the law can have led to
the results. On the other hand, we do not mean to deny that such
intelligence may act according to a law (that is to say, on a
preconceived and definite plan). Such law, stated in words, would be
no other than the actual observed law of organic succession; a one more
general, taking that form when applied to our own planet, and including
all the links of the chain which have disappeared. BUT THE ONE LAW IS A
NECESSARY SUPPLEMENT TO THE OTHER, AND OUGHT, IN ALL LOGICAL PROPRIETY,
TO FORM A PART OF ITS ENUNCIATION. Granting this, and with some demur
as to the genesis of man, we are far from disposed to repudiate the view
taken of this mysterious sub |